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Two armed men have entered a restaurant in Barcelona and are reported to be holding hostages, following an attack in which a van was driven into a crowd, causing a number of injuries. Two people are reported to have been killed. Police say they are "terrorist attacks".

Woman scrawls 9/11 graffiti over Delacroix masterpiece in Louvre-Lens

President François Hollande in front of Liberty leading the people at the …Reuters

A 28-year--old woman has vandalised one of France’s most treasured paintings, scrawling graffiti that appears to refer to 9/11 conspiracy theories over Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty leading the people in the Louvre’s new museum in Lens, northern France.

The woman, whose name has not been made public, scrawled “AE911” in six centimetre-high letters in indelible felt-tip marker across Delacroix’s most famous work just

Interactive map of France

Another visitor and security guard immediately grabbed her and she was still in police custody on Friday morning.

She has not made any statement on the reason for her act but AE911 is the name of a website carrying a petition calling for an independent inquiry into the 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center.

A specialist restorer was rushed to the scene and the Louvre believes that the inscription can be removed.

Liberty the leading the people, a work that is nowadays photoshopped almost as often as it is reproduced, is possibly the best-known image of French popular resistance to tyranny.

Delacroix painted it in 1830, following three days of insurrection on 27, 28 and 29 July of that year.